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Central Bank Widens Currency's Trading Range; Move Could Ease Trade Tensions
BEIJING—China made one of its strongest moves yet to show that it believes the yuan is ready to become a global currency by loosening daily trading limits.
The move to widen the currency's trading range, which went into effect Monday, doesn't eliminate Beijing's tight grip on the yuan. China's central bank still sets a daily reference rate for its currency. On Monday in China, the yuan opened modestly weaker in currency trading, after the central bank set a reference rate for the yuan stronger than Friday's market close.
Nonetheless, the change is seen as an important step toward addressing foreign complaints about China's currency policies. The U.S. and other advanced economies have pressed Beijing for years to relax its hold on the yuan and allow it to appreciate at a faster pace. The hope is to boost consumer demand in China as consumers in advanced nations, such as the U.S. and Europe, pull back amid still-fragile economies. China long had resisted a loosened yuan, fearing it would hurt the country's powerful export market. A stronger yuan makes Chinese products more expensive overseas, while making imports more affordable for Chinese consumers.
A freer currency market is the latest step from China's leaders to overhaul the country's financial system. Beijing has moved to bring the country's informal lending sector out of the shadows; has openly questioned the dominance of state-owned banks; and has eased its capital restrictions, amid complaints from both inside and outside the country that the financial system is inadequate to sustain the world's No. 2 economy.
The decision to widen the yuan's daily trading range was cautiously welcomed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund. "We've obviously over the course of the last several years pressed the Chinese to take additional steps to appreciate their currency and to come in line with international markets," said Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communication. "They've made some progress."
Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, called the widening of the trading band an "important step" to allow market forces to play a greater role in determining the level of the exchange rate.
The move, announced Saturday, signals that Beijing is increasingly confident that the yuan, also known as the renminbi, is fairly valued, a key requirement if it is to relax its grip on the currency. China points out that its trade surpluses have declined. It recorded a $5.4 billion trade surplus in March, after a $31.5 billion deficit in February. China's loosened controls on the yuan come just days before the International Monetary Fund is expected to sharply reduce its long-term forecast of China's current-account surplus, the broadest measure of a nation's trade.
Companies and investors who have long bet that the yuan is undervalued are rethinking that position. "In the past, we were very worried about renminbi appreciation," said Cai Dongchen, chairman and chief executive of China Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., a large drug maker that is based in mainland China and listed in Hong Kong. But Saturday's move, he said, "means that the renminbi is no longer a one-way bet, and that is good news for us."
The People's Bank of China, China's central bank, sets a daily rate for the yuan against the U.S. dollar, which is called the parity rate. China until now had allowed investors to push the yuan's value 0.5% in either direction from that rate in daily trading. On Friday, for example, the PBOC set a parity rate of 6.2879 yuan per U.S. dollar, meaning during the day the yuan was allowed to trade in a range of 6.2564 to 6.3193 per dollar, or about 15.8 U.S. cents to 16 U.S. cents per yuan.
On Saturday, the central bank said it has widened that trading band, allowing the currency to move up or down by 1% daily. In early trading Monday, currency traders pushed down the yuan against the dollar to 6.3165, about 0.3% weaker than the PBOC's parity rate and 0.2% weaker than Friday's close.
What happens next amounts to a market vote on whether the yuan is overvalued, undervalued or close to its fair value. If the yuan trades at the upper limits of the band, it shows markets believe the yuan has room to rise. If the upward pressure is persistent, it could make Beijing reluctant to loosen further. A downward push, meanwhile, could indicate investor nervousness over China's slowing economy and the possibility of capital flight if China further loosens its capital restrictions.
Currency-market watchers said the move was one of the most significant since mid-2010, when China first allowed the yuan to freely trade beyond its borders, leading to the creation of an offshore market in the city of Hong Kong.
"The renminbi is undergoing a regime change," said Daniel Hui, senior foreign-exchange strategist at HSBC Holdings PLC, pointing to the potential for "less consistent appreciation, increasing flexibility and volatility, and faster liberalization."
The magnitude of the trading-band expansion came at the top end of market expectations. The last time the band was widened was in May 2007, when it was increased to 0.5% from 0.3%.
Companies and investors are bracing for the expected greater volatility in the yuan's exchange rate. Until recently, most businesses and investors had viewed the yuan as a surefire bet to rise in value, but that view has changed as China's trade surpluses have declined. Analysts at HSBC and elsewhere recently dialed back their expectations for yuan appreciation this year to less than 2% from a previous forecast of roughly 3%. The currency gained 4.7% last year against the dollar and has jumped about 25% since its revaluation in 2005. It has dipped 0.14% against the dollar so far this year.
Some companies have started or are considering putting in place complex derivatives trades to protect themselves against both a rise and a fall in the yuan. For instance, ZTE Corp., 000063.SZ -1.87%a Hong Kong-listed Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications equipment that derives about half its sales from overseas, plans to invest this year up to $2 billion in derivatives products to guard against foreign-exchange risks, following a similar investment it made last year, according to the company's public filings last month.
China Pharmaceutical is one of the companies that have used such derivatives products to hedge against yuan appreciation. But now, given the increased two-way fluctuations in the yuan's value, Mr. Cai, the chairman and chief executive, said the company will consider engaging in derivatives transactions to bet on both a rise and a fall in the Chinese currency.
"We've made a lot of money from buying derivative products to just bet on renminbi appreciation," Mr. Cai said. "Now we need to factor in the downside potential."
Analysts say the central bank's move is aimed as much at domestic officials as foreign-exchange traders and companies. The central bank has been lobbying for some time to liberalize trading in the yuan, while prominent academics—who often speak for the central bank—have been arguing in public to let the yuan fully float. But China rarely takes steps as dramatic as going to a fully floating exchange rate in one big step.
The central bank reports both to the State Council and the Communist Party's central committee. Both institutions need to be convinced that a free-floating exchange rate won't harm the Chinese economy and will help in eliminating the build-up of foreign reserves, which is widely recognized as becoming an economic and political problem.
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